Those traveling in the Western part of the United States have noticed the growing presence of wind towers for providing renewable energy to generate electricity. These wind towers have several large blades which are turned by wind energy. The large blade assembly turns an electrical generator or an alternator and thereby converts wind energy into electrical energy. Supporting the large blade assembly above the ground is typically a substantially circular single hollow metal structural support column or mast.
The rapid growth of the use and construction of wind towers to harness the energy of the wind and convert the energy of the wind into electrical energy is well known. Not so well known is that the walls of the large hollow metal masts which both support and position the rotating blades in the wind are subject to damage. Such damage may occur in many ways such as: blade strikes; transportation damage; construction damage; inadvertent collision with other equipment such as a truck or a crane; and other types of unforeseen damage. Typically, the damage is in the form of a dent in the mast wall. Operators of wind towers have found that when dents in the walls of the masts of wind towers occur, it is generally advisable to remove the dent to assure the structural integrity of the mast as opposed to replacing the entire mast.
Because of the large size of the wind tower masts and the location of the dent on the wind tower mast, removal of a dent from the wall of a wind tower mast is not an easy thing to do. This task is further complicated by the fact that no two dents are exactly the same. Specifically, dents have a unique size, shape, orientation and location with respect to the wind tower mast. Because of the complexity of removing a dent from a wind tower mast there is a need in the art for a system and method for consistently and accurately removing dents from the walls of wind tower masts.